“Shouldn’t be,” Yeager answered. “The Lizards aren’t troublemakers. Besides, Burkett’s window, is barred, so they can’t get away. And besides one more time”-he pulled out a chair-“I sit here until they come out, and I go in and get ’em if they don’t come out inside of a couple of hours.” He reached into his shirt pocket, drew out a pack of Chesterfields (not his brand, but you took what you could get these days) and a Zippo. “Would you like a cigarette, uh-?”
“I’m sorry. I’m Barbara Larssen. Yes, I’d love one, thanks.” She tapped it against the desk, put it in her mouth, leaned forward to let him light it. Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked in smoke. She held it, then blew a long plume at the ceiling. “Oh, that’s nice. I haven’t had one in a couple of days.” She took another long drag.
Yeager introduced himself before he lit his own smoke. “Don’t let me get in your way if you’re busy,” he said. “Just pretend I’m part of the furniture.”
“I’ve been typing nonstop since half past seven this morning, so I could use a break,” Barbara said, smiling again.
“Okay,” Yeager said agreeably. He leaned back in his chair, watched her. She was worth watching: not a movie-star beauty or anything like that, but pretty all the same, with a round, smiling face, green eyes, and dark blond hair that was growing out straight though its ends still showed permanent waves. To make conversation, he said, “Your husband off fighting?”
“No.” That should have been good news, but her smile faded anyhow. She went on: “He was working here at the university-at the Metallurgical Laboratory, as a matter of fact. But he drove to Washington a few weeks ago. He should have been back long since, but-” She finished the cigarette with three quick savage puffs, ground it out in a square glass ashtray that sat by her typewriter.
“I hope he’s all right.” Yeager meant it. If the fellow needed to travel bad enough to do it with the Lizards on the loose, he was up to something important. For that matter, Yeager wasn’t the sort to wish bad luck on anybody.
“So do I.” Barbara Larssen did a game best to hold fear out of her voice, but he heard it all the same. She pointed to the pack of Chesterfields. “I hope you won’t think I’m just scrounging off you, but could I have another one of those?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks.” She nodded to herself as she started to smoke the second cigarette. “That
“Makes sense to me.” Yeager got up, stubbed out his own smoke. He didn’t light another for himself; he wasn’t sure where his next pack was coming from. He said, “I suppose keeping busy helps take your mind off things, too.”
“It does, some, but not as much as I hoped it would.” Barbara pointed to the door behind which Dr. Burkett was studying the Lizards. “How did you end up standing guard over those-things?”
“I was part of the unit that captured them, out west of here,” he answered.
“Good for you. But how did you get picked to stay with them, I mean? Did you draw the short straw, or what?”
Yeager chuckled. “Nope. Matter of fact, I broke an old Army rule-I volunteered.”
“You did?” Her eyebrows shot upward. “Why, for heaven’s sake?”
Rather sheepishly, he explained about his fondness for science fiction. Her eyebrows moved again; this time, their inner ends came together in a tight little knot above her nose. He’d seen that expression before, more times than he could easily count. “You don’t care for the stuff,” he said.
“No, not really,” Barbara said. “I was doing graduate work in medieval English literature before Jens had to move here from Berkeley, so it’s not my cup of tea.” But then she paused and looked thoughtful. “Still, I suppose it’s done a better job of preparing you for what’s happening here than Chaucer has for me.”
“Mmm-maybe so.” Sam had been ready with his usual hot defense of what he read for pleasure; finding out he didn’t need it left him feeling like a portable phonograph that had been wound up and forgotten without a record on its turntable.
Barbara said, “As for me, if I couldn’t type, I’d still be stuck in that Bronzeville flat.”
“Bronzeville?” Now Yeager’s eyebrows went up. “I don’t know a lot about Chicago”-
“Nobody’s ever bothered me,” Barbara said. “With the Lizards here, the differences between whites and Negroes look pretty small all of a sudden, don’t they?”
